“In 2007 the Council decided that the name of this award should itself reflect just that — the outstanding personal achievement of the late Peter Hills and the late Neville Rees. Peter was an outstanding transport academic at Newcastle University who pioneered thinking on demand management, the application of economic theory to transport, road user charging and many other aspects of intelligent transport. Neville Rees was also a mould-breaker; in his case changing the way in which Government analysed and then addressed problems of traffic management, traveller information, dynamic navigation and the links between traffic and spatial planning“.

We're delighted to be able to announce that the 2012 Hills-Rees award has been awarded to Professor Phil Blythe (School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences), leader of the Intelligent Transport strand of both transportNewcastle and the Transport theme of NIReS.

In presenting the award ITS UK President Steve Norris praised Phil's achievements in at least seven different application areas but summarised by saying that there were three common threads: a talent for looking over the horizon to see the potential in small activities that were destined to become far more important; an ability to bridge the gap between policy that needed new technology to work and innovative technology that enabled new policy to be set; and a track record of simple, affordable demonstrations to show what technologies can do.

Congratulations to Phil from everyone in NIReS and transportNewcastle!

Professor Phil Blythe Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems and Director of the Transport Operations Research Group (TORG)